Intentions, Propaganda, and Tyranny

Good Intentions

When analyzing the actions of the State and it’s employees, many people look primarily at the intentions of the individuals involved. The police are good because people sign up to protect people or stop the “bad guys”. The military is good because people sign up to “defend their country” and “protect freedom”. Public schooling is a good idea because teachers generally want to teach everyone, rich or poor. And all of these statements of intention will be right for the majority of people that sign up to work for the State. The basic problem with this is that intentions do not guarantee results. Stopping after looking at the intentions of someone who would work for a State agency, whether it be as a cop, military member, regulatory agent or even public schoolteacher, will always leave off the results problem. And to determine the results of these actions, no matter how well-intentioned, an analysis of systems, institutions, and economic reality is required.

Subverted Intentions

This is not a problem unique to any political viewpoint. Anyone who supports the existence of the State in principle falls into this trap at some point, whether they be conservative or liberal or anything else. This is what makes propaganda so effective. The US Navy calls itself a “global force for good” and as long as you believe that is its intention, why not sign up or support them? The police are there to protect civilians, so why bother looking at the results of police activity?

In many cases, this results in great tragedy. The same propaganda technique – playing on good intentions – helped drive the mass deaths of pointless combat in WWI and the Nazi persecution of Jews in the Holocaust. Europeans didn’t relish mass deaths in WWI – they only sought to “protect the homeland” and “restore peace”. German people weren’t generally racists or anti-Semites as Hitler rose to power – but they did fall into the trap of believing in the good intentions of people who wanted to restore their country’s glory and had a plan to do so.

Nor is this something that is confined to the worst regimes on Earth: the Hitlers, Stalins, and Maos. The same mentality of good intentions leads to people supporting military interventions in foreign countries. Good intentions have led to support in the US of invasive violations of privacy, the rounding up of Japanese-Americans into internment camps, and the colonization mentality of the British Empire.

Unintentional Tyranny

C.S. Lewis once wrote:

My contention is that good men (not bad men) consistently acting upon that position [imposing “the good”] would act as cruelly and unjustly as the greatest tyrants. They might in some respects act even worse. Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber barons’ cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some points be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.

Abuse of power justified on the basis of “it’s for the greater good” is uncomfortably common. And this is the root of all great tyrannies. A tyrannical regime can only last so long on the basis of the threat of force before enough rebellion builds to demolish it. But if the regime has convinced the masses that its existence and rule is necessary for the pursuit of good: to provide protection from evil, reduce the problems in life, ensure people remain upright and moral… If it has done that, the good intentions of people turn to unintentional tyranny.

This is the nature of the State. The police officer who signed up to protect innocent civilians is sent to enforce laws against victimless activity and ends up working to get out of the obligation to protect people. The public schoolteacher who wanted to better the lives of young children is beset by a political system that determines what and how she teaches. The individual who joined the military to “protect freedom” instead is sent to attack wedding parties and American citizens in the Middle East. Good intentions are perverted by the coercive monopoly of the State.

It’s not that these people are inherently bad people. They are the opposite. But the coercive and monopolistic institutions of the State twist their good intentions around and result in these people being used to serve it instead of their fellow men. As a friend of mine put it, “Let me put it this way: I think some people who are cops are also good people. However, I think most of them, when they can’t be both – when they have to make a choice between being a cop and being a good person – will choose being a cop.” And the problem is simple. The State will force them to make that choice.

Altar & Throne

Help Support Altar & Throne

Do you like what you're seeing here? Help support us to keep the content comin'!

Bitcoin:

Paypal:

Affiliate

Many of us here at Altar & Throne have had our horizons expanded through Tom Woods' Liberty Classroom, and believe in and endorse this product. Join today to get the education you've never received before!